Ukraine Has Been Quiet (Or Has It?)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Interesting, isn't that how news cycles fluctuate? And we have
been pretty much front and center the last few weeks
over tariffs and so on, and so instead of the
lead in a lot of cases, what's going on with
Russia Ukraine negotiations has taken a bit of a backseat,

(00:20):
and I wanted to get an update here, and John
Decker joins his twenty four to seven News White House
correspondent John good morning, Hey.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Good morning to you, Gary, Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
You bet, what do we know what's happening with Putin?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, you know, I think it's really frustrating for the
president because, as you know, out on the campaign trail,
he talked about ending the war between Russia and Ukraine,
talked about it quite a bit. And now his special envoy,
his name is Steve Whitcoff. He's traveled to Russia on
three separate occasions. He met over the weekend, in fact
this past weekend with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Saint Petersburg.

(00:55):
And for all of these trips, he really has nothing
to show for it. That ceasefire, the thirty day ceasefire
proposal put on the table by the administration it's been accepted,
but it's been accepted only by Ukraine. It has not
been accepted by Russia. It takes two to tango. The
president says that, and he's right. The fact is is
that Vladimir Putin shows no desire to end this war

(01:18):
now in its third year.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah. I saw wet Koff last night on Fox News,
and he's pretty good. I mean, he's like a professional
diplomat even though he's a businessman, and he seems guardedly optimistic.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Well, you know, I think optimism is always a good thing,
but there's also realism. And the fact of the matter
is is that we saw even over the past weekend
Russia has no desire to end this war. Over the
weekend an attack on a civilian area, killing dozens of
individuals in Russia in Ukraine. That was a missile attack

(01:53):
launched by Russia. And so even since Ukraine has agreed
to that ceasefire proposal, USh has actually increased its attack
on civilian areas inside Ukraine.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Just half a minute left, John, do you think that
he's playing for time or or seeing what concessions he
can extract from the negotiations?

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Good question. I can't get inside you know Vladimir Putin's head,
no one can. But you know, this is an individual
that you know, has devoted a significant amount of resources
to this war. He's not going to walk away without
achieving whatever goals he has in mind. And obviously those
goals have not been met yet, and that's the reason

(02:38):
why he hasn't agreed to that ceasfied just yet.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Right, good John, appreciate the info. John Ducker, twenty four
to seven News, White House correspondent here on kfab's Morning News. Yeah,
you wonder man. It is true that as long as
these negotiations drag and they're there is no ceasefire going on,

(03:05):
and the US is backed off of its commitment to
provide arms to the Ukraine. He's got the advantage in
the war itself. Now what does he want? I mean,
obvious this is not going to go on forever? All right?
Can we just stipulate that for openers it's not going
to go on forever? So what is the offer ramp,

(03:25):
if you will, or the endgame for Vladimir Putin? I
assume number one is there ain't going to be any
NATO membership for Ukraine. And I don't think anybody believes
there will be well there can't be putin wottle lot
of that. Well he wouldn't. He wouldn't stop shooting, right,
You just say, okay, well that's the way it's going
to be. I'm going to keep shooting until I own
the place and then try to get them into NATO.

(03:47):
They Ukraine shouldn't need to be in NATO. I mean
they really should, But on the Ukraine side they want
to say, wait a minute, sure I need it's not
going to be in NATO. I want something to guarantee
that he can pull this again. See to me that
that was that was the opportunity. Now, this was a
month or so ago when Trump was saying, here's what

(04:08):
we'll do. We come in in exchange for the two
hundred billion in gear we've sent over to you, we
get mineral rights until the two hundred billion is done,
and then we split them. And we're going to make
sure that there are fifty thousand NATO troops on the border. Okay,
we're going to tell these guys over here because it's
in your best interests, Finland and Poland and Germany, it's

(04:30):
in your best interests to put your troops on that
Ukraine Russia border. Now, there's no way that Vladimir Putin
is going to invade Ukraine if there are fifty thousand
NATO troops there and if the US has people are
working extracting those minerals.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
Yeah, you know, as if that mattered. They've been killamping
our people and they've been jailing our people for years.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
But everybody attack, he wouldn't start to attacking.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
You'd think, not, well, but he's not gonna He's not
going to tangle with fifty thousand truth on the border
of Ukraine and Rust. So just you're gonna have a
whole bunch of troops occupying your country, watching your border
under these conditions. But guess what, you're gonna have to
give up this much, you don't get into NATO. And
I see our friend Tom Brewers headed back over there.